Noir City opens Friday night and runs through the week.
A The Thief of Bagdad (1940 version), Pacific Film Archive, Wednesday, 3:10. One of the greatest fantasy adventures ever made, 
and made decades before Star Wars clones glutted the market. The special effects lack today’s realism, but they still pack an emotional punch (my daughter, when she was young, found this giant spider scarier than the ones in Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings). The sets are magnificent, the dialog enchanting, and the story’s randomness gives it a true Arabian Nights flavor. And all in glorious Technicolor. Part of the series and class Film 50: History of Cinema, which focuses on fantasy films this season.
A The 400 Blows, Roxie, Friday. François Truffaut helped launch the
French New Wave and modern cinema with this tale of a rebellious boy on the cusp to adolescence. Shot on a very low budget, it follows young Antoine (Jean-Pierre Léaud in the first of six films playing this role) as he cuts school, gets in trouble, discovers his parents’ marital problems, and refuses to fit in. Set to a brilliant jazz score, The 400 Blows captures the exhilaration and the horror (mostly the horror) of being 13. Part of a series of early films by Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard.
B+ Sorry, Wrong Number, Castro, Monday, 9:30 (complete show starts at 7:30). An invalid (Barbara Stanwyck), heavily dependent on her phone, accidentally hears some men on a party line plotting a murder. Things are going to turn very ugly in this tight and effective expansion of a 22-minute radio play into a feature-length thriller. Co-starring a shockingly young Burt Lancaster as her husband. On a double-bill with The Lady Gambles, which I haven’t seen. (I would like to point out, however, that something called The Lady Gambles really should be on a double bill with The Lady Vanishes, while another Hitchcock, Dial M for Murder should play with Sorry, Wrong Number.) Part of Noir City.
B Blackmail, Pacific Film Archive, Friday, 7:00. Alfred Hitchcock’s first talkie was also
his last silent –making two versions was common practice in 1929. I’ve seem both; the silent one (which the PFA is screening) is better. A young woman commits an indiscretion, putting her in a situation where she has to kill a man in self defense. A witness sees this act as a ticket to comfort. This is Hitchcock in an incubator, preparing to blossom a few years later into the master of suspense. By the way, am I the only one who thinks Donald Calthrop, who plays the blackmailer, is a dead ringer for Kenneth Branagh? Part of the series Suspicion: The Films of Claude Chabrol and Alfred Hitchcock. Accompanied by Judith Rosenberg on piano.
Bayflicks 